Helicopter parenting? Dad's homemade drone follows kid to bus stop

9 hrs.

Paul Wallich, like any loving dad, dutifully walks his grade-schooler son to the bus stop each morning. He does?find the quarter-mile hike to be a drag,?occasionally. His solution??He built a camera-equipped drone that helps him fulfill his parental obligation.

It's those Vermont winters that provided motivation for the?project.?"If I am walking my kid to the bus stop in December and January, I would really rather not be doing that," Wallich told NBC News.

The drone is a quadcopter that he built from store-bought parts. He strapped on a smartphone with a video-chat app so that he could watch his son from the comfort of his warm home.?

The trick was to get the drone to follow his son. After exploring a few possibilities, Wallich put a GPS beacon in his son?s backpack, and employed navigation software that tells the drone to stay an arbitrary distance from the beacon.

It worked ... up?to a point.

"Vermont, as it turns out, is a really bad place for doing this kind of thing because you have hills and you have trees,"?Wallich said. "Hills mean that the altitude control gets a lot more complicated and trees mean you have to do obstacle avoidance.

"If my kid is walking along the road and there is a branch overhanging the road, the quadcopter will gleefully run smack into it."

There are potential fixes, such as sonar for collision control.?By flying the quadcopter closer to his son ? about 15 feet off the ground ? he could program it to maintain altitude with respect to the ground instead of following GPS coordinates.

"But with the current state of the technology, unless I really changed the design a lot, I would not want it within 15 feet of my kid," he told NBC News. Some?people refer to this kind of unmanned craft as a "flying lawnmower," and with good reason.

Another glitch is battery life. Today?s lithium ion batteries are good for about one round-trip to the bus stop. But within a few years, drones should be lighter with longer-lasting batteries, making the use of drones to follow our kids to the bus or school a real possibility.

That is, if the kids will let us.

Wallich said his son thinks the robot is cool and loves the fact that nobody else?s dad at school?builds robot drones. "But the actual idea that this thing would be following him around for real, rather than for fun? I don?t think would actually go over terribly well," he noted. Good call, Paul.

To learn more about the technical side of Wallich's babysitting quadcopter, check out Wallich?s article in the?engineering magazine IEEE Spectrum, where he is a contributing editor.

? via Gizmodo?

John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/helicopter-parenting-dads-homemade-drone-follows-kid-bus-stop-1C7356195

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X-ray analysis deciphers master regulator important for skin cancer

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2012) ? With the X-ray vision of DESY's light source DORIS, a research team from Hamburg and Iceland has uncovered the molecular structure of a master regulator central to the most deadly form of skin cancer, melanoma. The results, published in the scientific journal Genes & Development, throw new light on the workings of the so-called Microphthalmia-associated Transcription Factor MITF, that is not only connected to skin cancer, but also to a variety of hereditary diseases where the production of the skin pigment melanin is disturbed, and to certain aspects of ageing.

"Our data could provide a rational basis for the development of tailor-made drugs targeting MITF," explains first author Vivian Pogenberg from the Hamburg branch of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL).

Melanoma is a malignant tumor of the cells that produce the skin pigment melanin, the melanocytes. It is not the most common form of skin cancer but the one with the greatest death toll by far: about 3 out of 4 skin cancer related deaths are caused by melanoma. Important for the development of melanoma are malfunctions of the Microphthalmia-associated Transcription Factor MITF. Transcription factors regulate which part of the DNA is read and transcribed into a blueprint for a protein within the cell. Only few parts of the DNA are active in each cell, and this activity also changes with time. MITF for instance activates the cell's machinery to turn the amino acid tyrosine into the pigment melanin.

But MITF also makes stem cells turn into melanocytes in the first place and controls cell proliferation and death in these cells. That's why MITF is called a master regulator. In fact, it also has functions in other cell types like mast cells of the immune system and bone eating osteoclasts. Mutations in MITF not only play a role in the development of skin cancer, but also cause severe genetic diseases like the Tietz and Waardenburg syndromes that lead to deafness, skin and hair pigmentation defects, abnormal eye anatomy and altered vision. The transcription factor also plays a role in our hair turning grey with age and other age-related pigmentation alterations.

The researchers crystallised MITF in the lab and x-rayed them with DORIS. Crystals scatter X-rays in characteristic ways and produce diffraction patterns from which the structure of the crystal -- and here MITF -- can be reconstructed. The analysis revealed unexpected molecular insertions that give MITF a unique kink. MITF forms a dimer with a long coiled-coil protein "zipper," and the kink in this zipper limits MITF's ability to bind to other transcription factors. The team could also identify structural changes caused by a number of MITF mutations known to lead to particular coat colours in mice and to Tietz or Waardenburg syndrome in humans. The different forms of MITF were supplied by the University of Iceland, where the lab of Eir?kur Steingr?msson hosts a comprehensive MITF library. Steingrimsson also provided his expertise in cell biology and genetics to support the structural data produced in Hamburg.

Thanks to the structural information from DORIS the team could also investigate the binding site of MITF to the DNA at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. The analysis revealed for instance that the eponymous mutation (the one leading to white coats and small eyes -- or microphthalmia -- in mice) causes structural changes in the MITF that prevents it from binding to the DNA. Other mutations also affect the binding site to the DNA, making MITF bind to the wrong genes. "Ultimately the goal will be to fully understand how MITF functions to evaluate how it can be targeted for potential treatment," says Matthias Wilmanns, a group leader at EMBL Hamburg. "One way would be, for instance, to design molecules that specifically stop MITF dimerisation in melanocytes," explains Pogenberg. "Or, on an alternative route, a different custom made molecule could stop the recognition of DNA by MITF."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Vivian Pogenberg et al. Restricted leucine zipper dimerization and specificity of DNA recognition of the melanocyte master regulator MITF. Genes & Development, 2012 DOI: 10.1101/gad.198192.112

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/7fEo_wBSeR4/121201085919.htm

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DEBATE: Mom Uses 'Pot' to Help With Child's Cancer | Fox News ...

11:46 am ET November 29, 2012

Pot

An Oregon mom?s decision in how to treat the symptoms of her daughter?s illness is raising a lot of questions. Seven-year-old Mykayla Comstock has cancer, and mom Erin Purchase says that she gives her cannabis oil pills to decrease her suffering and aid in pain relief.

However, many in the medical field disagree with the treatment, including Dr. Sharon Levy of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who says that even though the treatment is legal once the parent has a recommendation from a doctor, it still allows the mother to administer the drug and determine how much the daughter needs without medical supervision.

Purchase, however, credits the drug with doing what other painkillers couldn?t. ?Instantly, when she started taking the cannabis oil we saw a very good reaction to it,? she said. ?It controls her nausea, her pain ? every symptom she had, she just turned into a normal child. I believe that the long term consequences of narcotic pain relievers are a lot more damaging to Mykayla than a simple, organic oil.?


More Top Stories:
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A very serious side effect of the cannabis oil pills, according to Dr. Levy is an increased risk of depression, anxiety, increased risk of developing schizophrenia ? to name a few.

Do you disagree with her choice of treatment?

Source: http://foxnewsinsider.com/2012/11/29/debate-mom-uses-pot-to-treat-childs-cancer/

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Clearest evidence yet of polar ice losses

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Robert Meisner
robert.meisner@esa.int
European Space Agency

After two decades of satellite observations, an international team of experts brought together by ESA and NASA has produced the most accurate assessment of ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland to date. This study finds that the combined rate of ice sheet melting is increasing.

The new research shows that melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has added 11.1 mm to global sea levels since 1992. This amounts to about 20% of all sea-level rise over the survey period.

About two thirds of the ice loss was from Greenland, and the remainder was from Antarctica.

Although the ice sheet losses fall within the range reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, the spread of the estimate at that time was so broad that it was not clear whether Antarctica was growing or shrinking.

The new estimates are a vast improvement more than twice as accurate thanks to the inclusion of more satellite data, and confirm that both Antarctica and Greenland are losing ice.

The study also shows that the combined rate of ice sheet melting has increased over time and, altogether, Greenland and Antarctica are now losing more than three times as much ice, equivalent to 0.95 mm of sea-level rise per year, as they were in the 1990s, equivalent to 0.27 mm of sea level rise per year.

The 47 experts combined observations from 10 different satellite missions to reconcile the differences between dozens of earlier ice sheet studies and produce the first consistent measurement of polar ice sheet changes.

Earth observation satellites are key to monitoring the polar ice because they carry instruments that measure changes in the thickness of the ice sheets, fluctuations in the speed of the outlet glaciers and even small changes in Earth's gravity field caused by melting ice.

As outlined in the paper 'A Reconciled Estimate of Ice Sheet Mass Balance' published today in Science, the researchers carefully matched time periods and survey areas, and combined measurements from European, Canadian, American and Japanese satellites.

The measurement were acquired by instruments such as the radar altimeters and synthetic aperture radars flown on ESA's ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat missions from 1991.

"The success of this venture is due to the cooperation of the international scientific community, and to the provision of precise satellite sensors by our space agencies," said Professor Andrew Shepherd from the University of Leeds and one of the leaders of the study.

"Without these efforts, we would not be in a position to tell people with confidence how Earth's ice sheets have changed, and to end the uncertainty that has existed for many years."

The study also found variations in the pace of ice sheet change in Antarctica and Greenland.

"The rate of ice loss from Greenland has increased almost five-fold since the mid-1990s.

"In contrast, while the regional changes in Antarctic ice over time are sometimes quite striking, the overall balance has remained fairly constant at least within the certainty of the satellite measurements we have to hand," said co-leader of the study Dr Erik Ivins from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

###

The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise is a collaboration between 47 researchers from 26 laboratories, supported by ESA and NASA.

Europe's Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme will continue to monitor changes in the polar ice sheets during the coming decades, with the SAR and radar altimeter sensors on the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-3 satellite series, scheduled to be launched from 2013 onwards.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Robert Meisner
robert.meisner@esa.int
European Space Agency

After two decades of satellite observations, an international team of experts brought together by ESA and NASA has produced the most accurate assessment of ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland to date. This study finds that the combined rate of ice sheet melting is increasing.

The new research shows that melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has added 11.1 mm to global sea levels since 1992. This amounts to about 20% of all sea-level rise over the survey period.

About two thirds of the ice loss was from Greenland, and the remainder was from Antarctica.

Although the ice sheet losses fall within the range reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, the spread of the estimate at that time was so broad that it was not clear whether Antarctica was growing or shrinking.

The new estimates are a vast improvement more than twice as accurate thanks to the inclusion of more satellite data, and confirm that both Antarctica and Greenland are losing ice.

The study also shows that the combined rate of ice sheet melting has increased over time and, altogether, Greenland and Antarctica are now losing more than three times as much ice, equivalent to 0.95 mm of sea-level rise per year, as they were in the 1990s, equivalent to 0.27 mm of sea level rise per year.

The 47 experts combined observations from 10 different satellite missions to reconcile the differences between dozens of earlier ice sheet studies and produce the first consistent measurement of polar ice sheet changes.

Earth observation satellites are key to monitoring the polar ice because they carry instruments that measure changes in the thickness of the ice sheets, fluctuations in the speed of the outlet glaciers and even small changes in Earth's gravity field caused by melting ice.

As outlined in the paper 'A Reconciled Estimate of Ice Sheet Mass Balance' published today in Science, the researchers carefully matched time periods and survey areas, and combined measurements from European, Canadian, American and Japanese satellites.

The measurement were acquired by instruments such as the radar altimeters and synthetic aperture radars flown on ESA's ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat missions from 1991.

"The success of this venture is due to the cooperation of the international scientific community, and to the provision of precise satellite sensors by our space agencies," said Professor Andrew Shepherd from the University of Leeds and one of the leaders of the study.

"Without these efforts, we would not be in a position to tell people with confidence how Earth's ice sheets have changed, and to end the uncertainty that has existed for many years."

The study also found variations in the pace of ice sheet change in Antarctica and Greenland.

"The rate of ice loss from Greenland has increased almost five-fold since the mid-1990s.

"In contrast, while the regional changes in Antarctic ice over time are sometimes quite striking, the overall balance has remained fairly constant at least within the certainty of the satellite measurements we have to hand," said co-leader of the study Dr Erik Ivins from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

###

The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise is a collaboration between 47 researchers from 26 laboratories, supported by ESA and NASA.

Europe's Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme will continue to monitor changes in the polar ice sheets during the coming decades, with the SAR and radar altimeter sensors on the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-3 satellite series, scheduled to be launched from 2013 onwards.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/esa-cey113012.php

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Nonprofit briefs | Long Island Business News

by Bernadette Starzee
Long Island Business News Published: November 30, 2012
Tags: American Red Cross, Capital One Entrepreneurial Challenge, Facebook, Hofstra University, Kent Animal Shelter, Mercy Haven, NEFCU, New York Giants, New York Yankees, nonprofits, not-for-profit organizations, Not-for-Profits, Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine, Suffolk County National Bank, The Long Island Children?s Museum, The New York Islanders

12:25 pm Fri, November 30, 2012 News briefs, current events and projects involving various Long Island nonprofits and nonprofit organizations.

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Source: http://libn.com/2012/11/30/nonprofit-briefs-121/

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Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

(AP) ? Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

___

Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-11-28-Hospital-Linked%20Infections/id-ca38651705e14125bc76f3764d7a7fe5

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ACC presidents vote to add Louisville as member

The Atlantic Coast Conference announced Wednesday that its presidents and chancellors unanimously voted to add Louisville as the replacement for Maryland.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford said Louisville was the best fit for the league following Maryland's announcement last week that it would join the Big Ten in 2014.

"When you look at Louisville, you see a university and an athletic program that has all the arrows pointed up ? a tremendous uptick there, tremendous energy," Swofford said on a teleconference. "It's always an overall fit in every respect and I think that's what we found."

Louisville is the fourth school in 15 months and seventh in the past decade to leave the Big East for the ACC. Pittsburgh and Syracuse announced their move in September 2011 and will join the league next year, while Notre Dame said two months ago that it would eventually join in all conference sports except football.

Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich said it was hard not to worry about constantly shifting conference alignments and whether the school might be left out when everything finally settles. Louisville was a candidate to join the Big 12 last year before that league took West Virginia.

"We wanted to make sure all our opportunities were looked at," Jurich said. "But having the opportunity to go into the ACC is I think second to none, especially for our community around here. ... I can just tell you from our standpoint, we couldn't be in a better fit."

A person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press that ACC leaders also considered Connecticut and Cincinnati over the past week before the vote to add Louisville during a conference call Wednesday morning. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the ACC hasn't released details of the expansion discussions.

Politicians around Kentucky cheered the move.

Louisville mayor Greg Fischer issued a statement calling the ACC's decision "a fantastic development for the university, the city and the state." U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement the move was a credit to Jurich's leadership of the athletic department.

It's unclear exactly when Louisville will join the ACC. Swofford said that would have to be worked out between the school and the Big East. He also said the league is comfortable staying at 14 full members with the addition of Louisville.

The Big East has a 27-month notification period for any member that wants to leave. The Big East has shown a willingness to negotiate, as it did with Pittsburgh and Syracuse, who paid $7.5 million each to get out early when the exit fee was $5 million.

The Big East has since increased that fee to $10 million.

This latest rapid-fire round of realignment was set off last week by the Big Ten's additions of Maryland and Rutgers, which will join that conference in 2014.

On Tuesday, the Big East added Tulane for all sports and East Carolina for football only, also beginning in 2014.

In a statement, Big East Commissioner Mike Aresco wished Louisville well and said the league's additions are important for its future.

"We are committed to a vibrant and dynamic future for the Big East Conference," Aresco said.

Two months ago, the ACC announced the addition of Notre Dame for all the conference's sports but football, with the fiercely independent Fighting Irish committing to play five ACC football opponents each season. Most of Notre Dame's non-football sports have competed in the Big East since 1995.

Louisville's addition will add some extra juice to what's already one of the nation's premier conferences for men's basketball.

Louisville, currently ranked No. 5, brings a tradition-rich program to the ACC that has won two national championships and reached its ninth Final Four last season. In addition, Rick Pitino will give the league another marquee coaching name alongside Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, North Carolina's Roy Williams and soon Jim Boeheim of Syracuse.

The school's football program is a win away from earning a BCS berth. Charlie Strong's Cardinals travel to Rutgers on Thursday night for a game in which they could clinch the Big East's BCS bid.

The ACC's decision to add Louisville is a blow for Connecticut, which had been looking for a landing spot since Pittsburgh and Syracuse announced their Big East exits. UConn President Susan Herbst had indicated that an invitation to join that ACC is something the school would welcome.

"We will be athletically successful, regardless of our conference, because of our successes in NCAA competition," Herbst said in a statement. "... I realize this is a difficult day, but when we focus on research, discovery, and student success, we'll never go wrong."

___

AP Sports Writer Joedy McCreary in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/acc-presidents-vote-add-louisville-member-160605092--spt.html

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China - Dissident Chinese poet Li Bifeng sentenced to 12 years

27 November 2012

Source: Writers in Prison Committee, PEN International


(WiPC/IFEX) - 23 November 2012 - The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International protests the harsh sentence handed down to Chinese activist, novelist and poet Li Bifeng on 19 November 2012. He was sentenced on fraud charges, although it is widely believed that the charges are without foundation and politically motivated. PEN considers Li Bifeng to be held in violation of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which China is a signatory, and Article 35 of the Chinese constitution, both protecting the right to freedom of expression, and calls for his immediate and unconditional release.

According to PEN's information, leading Sichuan activist Li Bifeng, aged 48, was arrested on 12 September 2011 after being summoned for questioning by police in Mianyang city, Sichuan province, for alleged "economic crimes". Vaguely worded economic crimes are increasingly used to suppress political dissent in China, and those targeted include prominent Chinese artist and social critic Ai Weiwei. Li Bifeng was convicted of alleged 'contract fraud' by the Shehong County People's Court, Sichuan province, on 19 November 2012 and handed down a 12-year prison sentence. He is believed to be targeted for his peaceful political activism, in particular his links with exiled Chinese writer Liao Yiwu, who is a close friend of Li's and fled China two months before Li's arrest.

Li Bifeng is a prolific poet and novelist as well as a well-known dissident, who has spent a total of over 12 years in prison since 1990 for his activism and critical writings. He served a five-year sentence for taking part in the 1989 pro-democracy movement, followed by a seven-year jail term from 1998-2005 for reporting on a workers' protest in the Sichuan city of Mianyang in 1998. While in prison, Li produced some poetry and kept a diary. Some of his work can be found here.

Send appeals:

Protesting the harsh sentence handed down to dissident poet Li Bifeng, on charges which are widely considered to be politically motivated;

Calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Li Bifeng, in accordance with China's national and international obligations on freedom of expression.

Appeals to:

The State Council General Office
HU Jintao Guojia Zhuxi
2 Fuyoujie
Xichengqu
Beijingshi 100017
People's Republic of China
Email: gov@govonline.cn

Premier
WEN Jiabao Guojia Zongli
The State Council General Office
2 Fuyoujie
Xichengqu
Beijingshi 100017
People's Republic of China
Fax: +86 10 65961109

Please note that there are no fax numbers for all the Chinese authorities. WiPC recommends that you copy your appeal to the Chinese embassy in your country asking them to forward it and welcoming any comments.

You may find it easier to write to the Chinese ambassador in your own country asking him or her to forward your appeal. Most embassies are obliged to forward such appeals to the relevant officials in the country..

See this useful link to find the contact details of the Chinese embassy in your country: Chinese embassies abroad.

Messages of solidarity may be sent to Li Bifeng at: libifeng2012@gmail.com

Source: http://www.ifex.org/china/2012/11/27/li_bifeng/

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